


Grotesquerie

by henrywinter (bakkhant)



Category: Invasion (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, I write for all 3.25 people in this fandom, One-Sided Attraction, Pre-Slash, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Violence, but for the sake of everyone's health let's hope not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-25 00:44:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9794801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bakkhant/pseuds/henrywinter
Summary: A continuation of that last scene by the water.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be part of a much longer, Tom/Russell-centric piece mapping the aftermath of S1, but I'm in Tenerife (nice) with about a minute and a half of WiFi per day (less nice), which kind of killed the buzz. I might still do it someday.
> 
> That said, there are probably about three people in this fandom who most likely don't care either way. Please enjoy this meagre contribution nonetheless.

“Tom, what happened?” Mariel asks, apprehensive. It’s obvious something has; all she can do is brace herself.

“What have you done,” Russell echoes. “Tom, damnit, what did you do?”

It all goes downhill from there.

 

* * *

 

“How dare you,” Russell snarls, knuckles white around Tom’s collar. Rage and recrimination burn, bile-bitter, up his throat, flood his mouth with acid. He draws back for a half-moment, swills, spits. “How dare you turn her into one of you.” 

Tom blinks up at him, too slowly, eyes clear and blue as if they’d never drowned, never seen a man sliced and stitched clean down the middle, never looked away. “I’m sorry,” he stutters at last, soft and desperate like he already believes he doesn’t deserve forgiveness. “I didn’t want to, Russell, you know I never intended for any of this to happen -”

Russell has been here before, has played judge, jury and executioner all. Fury tastes raw, familiar, on his tongue, pounds hot and thick and fast through his veins. Mariel is saying something; if he could focus, she’d sound frantic. Beneath him, Tom opens his mouth to stumble over another broken-edged thought, quietly closes it again.

Time blurs around him: the sharp edge of his anger is his only point of clarity. He holds firm until all of a sudden he comes to, like jolting awake from a dream, like breaking the surface of a lake. 

“Stop it,” Mariel is shouting, over and over. “You’ll kill him!”

Russell looks down. His knuckles are wet.

 

* * *

 

When Tom looks at him this time, his gaze is bruised, wary. Only one eye opens, the other pressed shut by burst capillaries and fringed with blood from the split arch of his cheek, but even that is shockingly blue, a gulp of cold water on a stifling day. 

Russell still has one hand clenched into Tom’s skin, neck to collarbone, where he’d held him down. He’s acutely aware of how both his knees dig into the ground; he’s startled to notice pressure against the one planted firmly between Tom’s thighs. He sweeps a glance upwards in disbelief, catches a glimpse of bewildered shame before Tom shudders like he wants to get away from where he’s pinned into place, turns his face into the dirt.

“I’m sorry,” he pleads again, as Russell gets up. Russell, mostly confused himself, ignores him in favour of rolling his shoulders back, stretching out his spine, before striding away from both his ex-wife and the crumpled form on the ground, gait hurried but even. 

“Where are you going?” Mariel calls after him. He spares a glance over his shoulder. She’s rushing to crouch by Tom’s side; Tom flinches away, curling in on himself. Russell takes a grim satisfaction in seeing her hurt: perhaps she’ll realise for good that Tom is good for nothing, isn’t good enough for her, would only make her unhappy. 

“I’m going to find my pregnant wife,” he shouts back. He breathes out his disgust, feels lighter.


End file.
